the rosie and violetta show
so a week ago sunday my friend k. and i dressed up as enormous flowers, with big papier mache things on our heads that we made. there had been some heavy-duty stressful papiermacheing and painting at my place during the preceding three weeks. there were some moments when i wished we had made sure the costumes were ready FIRST before getting a gig date, since i hadn't realized how long the papier macheing would take. i hadn't made anything with papier mache for a long time. i think the moon pinata i made for my sister's birthday last january was the last. and making something that fits your face perfectly, and is comfortable and allows you to sing and smile (while dancing and playing an instrument) is a much more challenging task than i had imagined.
the day before the show the papier mache was at last all done, and dried (after several emergency procedures), but NOT painted, so we spent all day saturday quite stressed out, painting in turns and putting the flowers next to the heater to dry faster. luckily poster paints dry quickly. i kept having terrible accidents like sploshing white paint blobs on the red rose petals i had perfected earlier, then having to mix paint to get the exact shade of red again to paint over the mistake, etc. i was still feverishly painting at midnight the night before the show.
we were a little nervous because we had heard via a few different sources that we should expect a huge crowd! we had barely done any advertising, but i had taken a poster and some handbills to the "british international school" (where the children of foreign ambassadors and rich snobby business people attend school) and k. took a poster and handbills to the british school's competition, "the american international school" (equally snobby, just an alternative to the british snobbery), so we had the two international schools covered. i got a phone call from the librarian of the american school saying they were so thrilled about the show and had made an announcement at the school assembly about it and had photocopied the handbill for every single student! "what!!!" i said, shocked, "it's a small cafe we're performing in, i don't think your whole school can fit!" then i got a call from the british school, saying that the director had mentioned the show in the school's weekly newsletter! k. and i had been planning on going around some more and putting up posters at the british council as well as tons of polish public schools and libraries, but after these two calls we dropped those plans! we became terrified the place would be so packed we wouldn't have any space to do our show (there was no stage).
the crowd ended up being the perfect size - it was packed to capacity (with even people peeking in through the open door, unable to come in) but not so many people that anyone was crushed to death or angry about not finding a place to sit.
we had decided to be "crazy glamorous" flowers. so, even though our show was at 11:00 on a sunday morning, we were wearing fishnet stockings and sexy dresses.
getting the costume together was perhaps the most fun part of the whole thing. my whole life i've loved collecting crazy dresses and costume jewellery, but there never seemed much point to it, since i don't wear any of it on a normal day. my mom always told me i should get rid of clothes i don't wear.
but suddenly my pack-rat tendency came very useful!
k. came over to my house to discuss our costumes and she said, "i don't know what i'm going to wear! i don't have anything!" and i said, "never fear," and pulled out the huge suitcase in which i keep my collection of old dresses (many of them old value village finds, never worn, just waiting for the perfect occasion). we spread the dresses all out and i got out my boxes of crazy costume jewellery and we had a great time finding the perfect combinations.
i wore a red marilyn monroe-style wrap-around 1950s dress, with lots of red jewellery, fishnets, and red shoes. i had to be in red because i was a rose. k. wore a 1960's silver and blue minidress, worn only once before - by my sister at a new year's party when she was visiting me.
our show was all linked together by a script i wrote and featured several stories that were familiar to the kids (such as the gingerbread man and goldilocks) mixed with lots of stuff that was new (some melodies i made up, a weird song about birds that kristen taught me, among other things). this turned out to be a great way to do a kids' show - the familiar stuff gets them excited because they can sing/clap/dance along to whatever it is - but if the whole show was familiar to them it would be boring, so the new stuff keeps them interested and provides some variety.
this first show was for free, because it was fun for us, and it was kind of an experiment, we didn't know if we could do it. i've never performed for kids.
but we had tons of people coming up to us afterwards saying they were thrilled to finally have some english-language entertainment in krakow... and already two gigs have emerged from that first show. a kid in the audience is having his fourth birthday party on saturday and wants us to be there, doing the same show for him and his friends. and the american school has invited us to come perform for the lower grades (ages 3-7) this friday afternoon.
so dressing up, being crazy, and playing music is becoming my career, after all, something i've dreamed of for a while.
the day before the show the papier mache was at last all done, and dried (after several emergency procedures), but NOT painted, so we spent all day saturday quite stressed out, painting in turns and putting the flowers next to the heater to dry faster. luckily poster paints dry quickly. i kept having terrible accidents like sploshing white paint blobs on the red rose petals i had perfected earlier, then having to mix paint to get the exact shade of red again to paint over the mistake, etc. i was still feverishly painting at midnight the night before the show.
we were a little nervous because we had heard via a few different sources that we should expect a huge crowd! we had barely done any advertising, but i had taken a poster and some handbills to the "british international school" (where the children of foreign ambassadors and rich snobby business people attend school) and k. took a poster and handbills to the british school's competition, "the american international school" (equally snobby, just an alternative to the british snobbery), so we had the two international schools covered. i got a phone call from the librarian of the american school saying they were so thrilled about the show and had made an announcement at the school assembly about it and had photocopied the handbill for every single student! "what!!!" i said, shocked, "it's a small cafe we're performing in, i don't think your whole school can fit!" then i got a call from the british school, saying that the director had mentioned the show in the school's weekly newsletter! k. and i had been planning on going around some more and putting up posters at the british council as well as tons of polish public schools and libraries, but after these two calls we dropped those plans! we became terrified the place would be so packed we wouldn't have any space to do our show (there was no stage).
the crowd ended up being the perfect size - it was packed to capacity (with even people peeking in through the open door, unable to come in) but not so many people that anyone was crushed to death or angry about not finding a place to sit.
we had decided to be "crazy glamorous" flowers. so, even though our show was at 11:00 on a sunday morning, we were wearing fishnet stockings and sexy dresses.
getting the costume together was perhaps the most fun part of the whole thing. my whole life i've loved collecting crazy dresses and costume jewellery, but there never seemed much point to it, since i don't wear any of it on a normal day. my mom always told me i should get rid of clothes i don't wear.
but suddenly my pack-rat tendency came very useful!
k. came over to my house to discuss our costumes and she said, "i don't know what i'm going to wear! i don't have anything!" and i said, "never fear," and pulled out the huge suitcase in which i keep my collection of old dresses (many of them old value village finds, never worn, just waiting for the perfect occasion). we spread the dresses all out and i got out my boxes of crazy costume jewellery and we had a great time finding the perfect combinations.
i wore a red marilyn monroe-style wrap-around 1950s dress, with lots of red jewellery, fishnets, and red shoes. i had to be in red because i was a rose. k. wore a 1960's silver and blue minidress, worn only once before - by my sister at a new year's party when she was visiting me.
our show was all linked together by a script i wrote and featured several stories that were familiar to the kids (such as the gingerbread man and goldilocks) mixed with lots of stuff that was new (some melodies i made up, a weird song about birds that kristen taught me, among other things). this turned out to be a great way to do a kids' show - the familiar stuff gets them excited because they can sing/clap/dance along to whatever it is - but if the whole show was familiar to them it would be boring, so the new stuff keeps them interested and provides some variety.
this first show was for free, because it was fun for us, and it was kind of an experiment, we didn't know if we could do it. i've never performed for kids.
but we had tons of people coming up to us afterwards saying they were thrilled to finally have some english-language entertainment in krakow... and already two gigs have emerged from that first show. a kid in the audience is having his fourth birthday party on saturday and wants us to be there, doing the same show for him and his friends. and the american school has invited us to come perform for the lower grades (ages 3-7) this friday afternoon.
so dressing up, being crazy, and playing music is becoming my career, after all, something i've dreamed of for a while.